


Crash and Burn

by Willowanderer



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Other, Remus-Typical dialouge, Sex Jokes, implied Dukceit - Freeform, implied intrulogical, masturbation mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24171730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowanderer/pseuds/Willowanderer
Summary: Thomas is feeling better, and ready to dive back into making videos. Something is a little off, however…Sequel to 'Falling Star'
Relationships: Thomas Sanders & The Sides
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Crash and Burn

“What is up everybody?” Thomas said cheerfully into the camera. “I know it’s been a hot minute, but I had to go back down to like, the fourth video and take the time for me I needed, and that can take a while. But I’m feeling better now, energized and raring to go. So it’s time for some good old-fashioned brainstorming, and for that I’ll need my brain” he gestured towards the entryway, and Logan rose up with a resigned expression. 

“Good afternoon Thomas. Surely there has to be a more efficient way to do this?”

“This is more fun!” Thomas retorted. “And I’ll also need my-” he gestured towards the television and Logan surged forward a little bit

“Perhaps you shouldn’t-” 

There was a laggardly pause, then a strain of music played- distinctly _not_ an airy flourish. 

“No wait wait!” Thomas made a pushing down gesture, but it was too late. Remus had arrived with a wine glass full of something white and opaque, and what might have been fingers sticking out of it. He stuck one in his mouth and crunched. 

“I brought snacks!” he said cheerfully, toasting with the glass.

“Remus, what are you doing here?”

“You called for your creativity! And here I am.” 

“I called for  _ Roman _ ”

“Yep.” he scooped out some of whatever was in the cup with the orange stick, and licked it off. “You got me though.”

“What is that, puss and fingers?”

“Uh, no. It’s Pumpkin-spiced greek yogurt and baby carrots.”

“Somehow worse.” Thomas winced. “Wait, that’s a seasonal flavor, where did you find that?”

“Where do I find anything good to eat? The back of the fridge.” 

“It’s May.” 

“I grew the carrots.”

“Baby carrots aren’t actually young carrots, they're just tumbled pieces of larger carrots.” Logan protested. 

“Tell that to my nursery! They’re so cute in diapers.” 

“Remus what did you do to Roman?”

“What did  _ I _ do to Roman?” he gave a stuttering laugh. “What did  _ you _ do to Roman.” 

“Is he still upset about…” 

“Roman has been… less than communicative of late.” Logan put in. “You can still ‘brainstorm’ you said without him-”

“Take me off the bench!” Remus urged. “Or take me over it, both sound fun.” 

There was a pause as both Thomas and his Logic stared at Remus, who took a slurping sip of his snack, leaving yogurt in the edge of his mustache. 

“Where is he?” Thomas demanded. Remus straightened up a little bit and wiggled. 

“Ooh I  _ love  _ it when you get commanding, Tommy. He’s in the Imagination, playing petty tyrant.” 

“Is that bad?” Thomas asked Logan.

“Well, yes and no. Bad for you? No, you’re still able to access the things Roman brings to the table. You haven’t had any problems getting ridiculous crushes on semi-celebrities, acting, or thinking of ideas, this was just a formal brainstorming session, probably because you didn’t have a better idea for a video besides watching Roman and I ‘Go At It’.” Remus snorted with amusement. “Bad for Roman? Possibly.” 

“Uh, that’s not the way ‘go at it’ is normally used.” Thomas said, looking a little uncomfortable. 

“It is not used to indicate conflict?”

“It’s more often used to indicate fucking.” Remus corrected “Like ‘watching two dogs going at it’.”

“I assumed it meant fighting.” Logan pulled out a card and jotted something down on it. Remus took another sip of his yogurt, and stuck a carrot in his mouth like a cigar. 

“Say, did you know that rabbits don’t actually like carrots that much? They can get sick if they eat too many.” 

“What?”

“Yeah, it was Bugs Bunny making a reference to a popular movie star smoking a cigar.” Remus went a little starry eyed. “Bugs Bunny is a chaos god of an influencer. Instagram wants what he has.” 

“Well that’s a piece of my childhood destroyed.” Thomas sighed. 

“Much like that poor rabbit’s colon.” 

“He’s right, carrots are mainly fructose and fiber, though they do contain several nutrients. They’re far from the healthiest vegetable available.” 

“Doesn’t matter, still hate them.” Thomas pushed his hair back from his face. “Can we get back to my missing Roman?” 

“ _ Have _ you been missing him?” Remus asked, eating the last of the carrots and tossing the wine glass over his shoulder, behind the TV. Thomas assumed it was imaginary, but he winced anyway. 

“I thought I was giving him space to calm down.” Thomas said in a small voice. 

Remus cackled. “He hasn’t come out of the imagination in weeks, he is in no way calmed down.” 

“Which does bring me back to the ‘possibly’ I mentioned earlier.” Logan put in. He paused and didn’t say any more.

“Are you trying to be ominous? Because you’re being kind of ominous.”

“That wasn’t my intent, Thomas, I simply wanted to be sure you wanted the information.” he cleared his throat. “You are aware of our ‘rooms’ at this point, where some of our traits are, shall we say, prevalent.”

“You’re soaking in it.” Offered Remus, picking bits of carrot out of his teeth. 

“Not inaccurate. This shall we say field of effect can have a negative effect on sides that don’t share the right- there isn’t really a word for it- call it theoretical biology.” 

“What does this have to do with Roman?”

“Bear with me please, I’m getting to that. It can have a negative effect on other sides, but a positive effect on the side to whom the ‘room’ belongs. It can increase stability, reinforce tasking, and give a feeling of wholeness.”

“Patton got over excited and effusive in his room though-” 

“That’s just Patton.  _ Particularly  _ Patton who is trying to avoid a subject.” 

“I keep telling him that talking about his last bowel movement works so much better to get people to change the subject, but apparently that’s a shitty idea.” Remus put in. 

“At any rate, Roman’s room-”

“ _ Our _ Room” 

“‘Creativity’s room- Enhances shall we say, flights of fancy, visualization, and to a certain degree, emotional responses.”

“And that’s the Imagination you guys have been talking about?”

“Nope!”

“The imagination is part of you the same way we are part of you, just not anthropomorphized.”

“Make me sound like a furry there, Logan.” Thomas raised an eyebrow. 

“Ugh.” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, and continued. “Other parts of your brain are the subconscious, autonomous functions, and your memory archives, both short term and long term. Most parts of your mind interact. What we call the mindscape is basically the place between these parts. We, that is your Sides, live in that area. While we each have our ‘rooms’ our corners of your mind, we also have a common area, which is more or less where you go when you want to talk to us, it isn’t very deep into the mindscape, a surface level daydream. You don’t even realize you’re not quite in the real world.” He looked at Thomas. “Are you… following any of this?”

“Uhm. I’m going to nod, but I’m also going to admit I’m probably not going to retain much.” Thomas smiled weakly. 

“As per the usual.” Logan huffed. “Do you wish me to continue?” 

“I need you to get to the point.” 

“Roman isn’t spending time in his room or even the mindscape to refocus. He’s spending all his time in the imagination, instead of just most of it. This isn’t interfering with his function, so much as how he interacts with it.”

“He’s throwing a hissy fit. But he doesn’t want to duck out, he just wants attention.” Fingers looped as if he was holding something Remus shook his hand up and down from the wrist. “But because he’s pretty much barricaded himself in the imagination to play at being a villain, no one can get to him.” 

“I’ve been trying-” 

“Yeek!” Thomas jumped as Patton rose up. 

“Sorry sport.” Patton smiled weakly. He looked a little tired and stressed. “Like I said, I keep trying to talk to him, but I get lost, then I end up back outside the imagination again.” 

“Which at least mean’s Roman’s family-friendly rules are still mostly intact, despite his prolonged sojourn.” Logan commented. “Regardless of this delusion that he’s developed.”

“What delusion?” 

“Roman tends to think of things as pretty black and white.” Patton bit his lip “I have trouble with it too. I’ve been working on it. Gosh, I sure have a lot to work on. Uhm, so when he felt that he wasn’t your hero; if the person he thought of as the villain wasn’t a villain,  _ he  _ had to be.” Patton rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “He had a little problem after we got Virgil back, but the whole thing was, you know, gradual. Roman could rephrase him as kind of… you know those dark brooding characters in movies that love dogs, and have a heart of gold? Like that.” 

“Besides,” Remus pointed out. “He’d decided that he didn’t like Virgie, but that he was  _ his _ . Him and DJ are alike in that they get super possessive. DJ was never  _ his _ villain, just  _ the _ villain. He’s  _ my  _ villain.” he added under his breath smugly. 

“What does that mean? I thought you two were like, friends. In cahoots.”

“‘friends’ “ Logan said distantly. 

“Look at it this way Thomas; What does Roman inspire you to do? Get out there and put yourself in front of a lot of people to perform. What makes that less likely? The fact those people are going to judge you with no context what-so-ever.” 

Thomas had to admit the thought made him shudder. 

“What do I inspire you to do?” 

“... swear? Masturbate? Eat things I find on the ground?” Thomas thought for a long moment “ … Jump out of a moving car?”

“That’s the one I was thinking of. And staging it for a vine doesn’t count, btw, it’s still on the to-do list.” Remus smoothed his mustache. “And what does DJ do? He comes up with excuses for the swearing. He’s self preservation. He stops you from destructive behavior. Well, except for the chips.”

“Do we have any?” Logan said without thinking, looking over his shoulder. “No, wait, focus. Thomas you’re going to need to have a healthy snack after we’re done here.”

“You should try the carrots and yogurt.” Remus urged, as Thomas and Patton made identical expressions of distaste. “Deodorant then?” 

“Roman!” Patton urged. “We need to get him out of the imagination before he forgets that he’s not a figment!” he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I don’t want to stand next to Remus for the rest of our lives.” 

“Love you too, Daddy Dearest.” 

“I ... love … you I just don’t love the way you smell.” Patton said uncomfortably. “I’ve made up my mind that I was wrong and I can … care about you, even if you’re really scary.” 

“If you give yourself a hernia, I  _ will  _ poke it.” 

“Can that happen?” Thomas demanded of Logan. “Can Roman just… forget who he is?” 

“The short answer is yes. He can. He’s always come back to himself before, but he’s always been much more himself when he forgets before this, so- the data is inconclusive. For now, we can’t seem to reach him.” 

“Leaving me to answer the call as your imagination.” Remus leaned forward, as much into Thomas’s space as he could outside of daydream mode. “ _ Use me _ .”

Thomas leaned away, laughing uncomfortably.

“Can I use you to come up with a way to get Roman back?” 

“If you’re going to be  _ dull _ , yeah.” 

“Can we… can we go get him? Like we did with Virgil?” Thomas asked. 

“That would be incredibly dangerous. The Imagination is not like our rooms. It’s unpredictable, and easy to get lost in.”

“Patton just said he keeps ending up back outside it.”

“That’s Patton.” Logan gestured at him. “If you were with us, I don’t know what would happen. We could get separated, or hurt, and our natural abilities are tempered by the environment.”

“So what, I just wait around for him to work through whatever he’s doing, or forget us and abandon me?” Thomas looked genuinely upset at the prospect. 

“Don't worry,” Remus assured Thomas, with a huge grin. “I’ll always stick with you, until you safeword out.”

“Uh, disturbing; also we haven’t established a safe word.”

“Better start guessing then.” Remus winked. 

“He prefers ‘Roman’ And ‘Please’” Logan offered.

Thomas turned slowly and stared at Logan for a long moment. Logan blinked at him, wondering what brought that on. 

“Okay, moving on.” Thomas shook himself. “I understand the danger Logan, but I can’t… I can’t just wait around and hope this gets better on it’s own. Roman’s my … my friend, as well as everything else. If I hurt him, I need to try and fix it.” 

“I don’t think you do understand the danger, Thomas.” Logan bit his lips together and pressed the side of his knuckles to his mouth. 

“As much as I  _ love  _ being the bearer of bad news…” Janus descended the staircase, stopping on the landing. “I’m afraid it’s gotten worse.” 

“What do you mean?” Thomas said nervously. “... and where is Virgil? I feel like shit, he should  _ be  _ here, even if he’s still a little on edge from all the big reveals.” 

“ _ That’s _ the bad news.” Janus sighed, looking slightly defeated. “He went after Roman. By himself.” 


End file.
